National Minimum Wage increases

[buryboy]

What are people's view on the annual increases in the NMW ?
From April it goes up 6.2% to £8.72 for over 25's

In January 2016 , four years ago, it was £6.70, so by April it will have gone up just over 30%

I will be lucky if mine has gone up 5% in that time, and I am sure that is a long way from being unusual

[BevS97]

I think it should be enough for a person to live on and support a family. It equates to £290/week. Not a lot to live on. So while I also haven’t had a pay rise in the last few years I don’t have an issue with it at all.

[Guest]

Seems reasonable, it at least gets closer to the voluntary livingwage.uk recommendation.

[ChoppyGirl]

The only ‘problem’ is for those already just above this. The authority where I used to work had set scales for certain roles. We had difficulty recruiting scale 3 because scale 2 were virtually the same salary for a lot easier work. I guess the solution would be to increase the salary for scale 3 but then it’s too close to scale 4 etc etc

[BevS97]

Originally Posted by ChoppyGirl

The only ‘problem’ is for those already just above this. The authority where I used to work had set scales for certain roles. We had difficulty recruiting scale 3 because scale 2 were virtually the same salary for a lot easier work. I guess the solution would be to increase the salary for scale 3 but then it’s too close to scale 4 etc etc

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Because wages generally have been stagnant for far too long.


In my first job in the early 90s we got a 10% pay rise the first year. Those sorts are figures are unheard of now.

[ChoppyGirl]

Originally Posted by BevS97

Because wages generally have been stagnant for far too long.


In my first job in the early 90s we got a 10% pay rise the first year. Those sorts are figures are unheard of now.

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10% would be nice. We had 2% last year, and 1% for a few years before with nothing for about 3 years as I am still public sector. Unfortunately the cost of living isn’t at the same rate!

[Megandllsmum]

For someone who works for minimum wage I'll happily take the increase thank you 👍

[JLH]

Originally Posted by buryboy

What are people's view on the annual increases in the NMW ?
From April it goes up 6.2% to £8.72 for over 25's

In January 2016 , four years ago, it was £6.70, so by April it will have gone up just over 30%

I will be lucky if mine has gone up 5% in that time, and I am sure that is a long way from being unusual

See more...

but do you not think £6.70 was an incredibly low amount for people to be earning an hour hence why it needed to go up considerably?

[Pieces]

I have worked for minimum wage for a long time doing hard work, the increase is very welcome and much needed for a lot of people.

Luckily I have now found a new job paying more than this which starts in a month. Although not much more!
The rise will help a lot of people, we were all talking about it in my team at work last week.

[EssexSue]

The problem is the people above do not increase so eventually a large proportion of workers will be on "minimum" wage. That's not a reason to not increase it though but it might make people think twice about taking on more responsibility.